Every music fan brags about the show they saw that no one else did. Catching Nirvana at the Gothic Theatre on the Bleach tour. The Police at the Rainbow Music Hall back in the day.

Didn't get to either of those; my best memories are Radiohead at the tiny Troubadour in Los Angeles on The Bends tour, and a secret Prince show at his club where the Purple Rain solo got played close enough to touch his guitar.

It's the near-misses that are aggravating. Some of them weren't my fault. My parents refused to spend $4 a ticket and drive an hour to take us kids to The Beatles at Dodger Stadium. John Bonham up and died just before I was going to get to see Led Zeppelin.

But then there are the big mistakes. Regrets? I've had a few. • Pink Floyd took its enormous production of The Wall on tour in 1980, an elaborate display that has become legendary for its intricacy, lavish presentation and, of course, the wall tumbling down at the end of it.

It did six nights at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. I liked The Wall OK at the time, but the band was doing it in its entirety, nothing else. I wanted to see other Floyd hits like Money and Shine On You Crazy Diamond, so I decided to wait for the next tour. The full band didn't reunite for 24 years. • Passing through San Francisco in 1977, I stopped into Bill Graham's shop. While there I picked up a copy of Led Zeppelin's concert poster on heavy stock from The Day on the Green, the legendary shows where John Bonham was arrested for beating a roadie. It was on the wall for a few years before it got tossed. Those original heavy-stock posters are now going for $2,564 at wolfgangsvault.com. • It was a hard choice: a ski trip with friends to Big Bear, or catch the Talking Heads on one of three nights at the Pantages Theatre in L.A.

Aww, the Heads will always tour again. So while David Byrne wore the big suit and the band filmed its last-ever tour for the classic film Stop Making Sense, I was doing face-plants in the powder. • A tribute concert to the late drummer Jeff Porcaro at Universal Amphitheatre in December of 1992 featured those who worked with him - Boz Scaggs, Don Henley and more. Illness made me skip it - and miss the only chance ever to see the surprise guest George Harrison on the final encore, A Little Help From My Friends. • My uncle was a cheapskate, so instead of buying my sister Meet the Beatles for Christmas, he decided to save a couple of bucks by getting her Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles on Vee-Jay Records.

That original gatefold vinyl release is worth a lot of money in good condition today. However, soon after she got it I showed her how to peel the labels off the front and back of the cover. • The Replacements opened for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at the old Fiddler's Green on the Full Moon Fever tour. The show ended, I left, but Petty and Paul Westerberg went to Rock Island to blast through a set of oldies. I know a bunch of you have similar stories - you've e-mailed about them over the years. Send your biggest regret to brownm@Rocky MountainNews.com, and we'll put them in the paper and online.

Concert laments

It happens to everyone: You decide not to go to a concert, and for one reason or another it turns out to be a momentous occasion. Tell us about the big shows you've missed by sending an e-mail to:

brownm@RockyMountainNews.com.

Mark Brown is the popular music critic. Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2674